The oh-so-pained life of baby boomers
Bernard Salt, Demographer | September 06, 2007
I HAVE had it up to here with you whinging, carping baby boomers. And you Xers aren't much better either. I've been silent on what's wrong with you old-fart generations for far too long. Someone should have told you where you're wrong a long time ago.
All we Generation Ys ever hear from baby-boomer management is how difficult it is for them to manage us. Apparently we're too fickle, too flighty, too feckless to really understand what life's all about. We don't understand the pain the boomers have been through, and that makes them strong and us weak.
Well, let's test the veracity of the boomer view and examine the oh-so-pained life of their generation. I'll deal with you Xers in a manner befitting your generation after I deliver it to the boomers right between the eyes.
Let's start with the 60s. Apart from a credit squeeze in the decade, this was pretty much full-on full employment delivering good economic times. No pain there unless, of course, you boomers are counting the stress you went through "because your parents didn't understand you".
Then came the 70s. Bit of an oil crisis caused petrol prices to rise. Hmmm. We're not exactly dealing with the four horsemen of the Apocalypse here, are we?
Although, there was a period of high inflation during the Whitlam years. Now, tell me again, boomers, how these events tragically affected your 20-something lifestyle - other than to impose a really bad karma over the whole era. And which you courageously and stoically survived.
Then on into the late 70s and early 80s, with nothing too negative impacting on those delicate young boomer lives. Although, to be fair, there was a quite nasty drought in 1982 which resulted in, you know, really oppressive water restrictions. Oh, the pain.
Then we come to the late 1980s and the action and life-shaping experiences of the boomers starts to hot up. The stock market crash of October 1987 resulted in exactly what sort of impact on you, boomers? I mean, at this stage in life boomers are aged in their late 20s and 30s. It's not as if this lot had their life savings wiped out by a single day's trading.
And in either case, the Australian economy immediately kicked on strongly into property. That's right. Property. Here's where those terribly "put upon" baby boomers had to endure a year or so of high interest rates on houses bought earlier in the decade for less than $50,000. If these interest rates were so devastating, how is it that you boomers managed to hang on to your houses?
Oh, I get it, the boomers found it very stressful at the time to deal with high interest rates and it is this experience that gives them the right to lord it over every succeeding generation about how you have been to hell and back.
Oh, and then there were those dreadful downsizings that baby boomers survived in the early 1990s. But if those downsizings were truly so dreadful, then why is it that boomers are now at the top of the heap in the business world? Whereas preceding generations just took things in their stride, the boomers live it, magnify it, and hold it out as some great and meaningfully life-shaping event.
They are so self-obsessed that they seize upon every event, every trend, every "cause" and treat it as if mankind has never broached these matters previously.
The boomers invented pre-marital sex. The boomers were the first to come up with the notion of teenage rebellion. The boomers invented new out-there forms of fashion such as, well, denim. However, they did grow their hair long and should be given full credit for this contribution to human achievement.
And so we come to the boomers at 50-something in the workplace. What do you suppose is the great business issue of our time? That's right. The pain the boomers must endure in managing Gen Y.
Where does the boomer's self-obsession end? And, really, what life experience have they endured that gives them the right to lord it over every one else?
As far as I can see, they've had 30 years of adulthood with one major recession followed by a downsizing. And none of which was really sufficient to knock them off their trajectory to property wealth and business success.
We Ys should be so lucky as to have three decades in front of us in such a benign economic environment. And at the end of our careers we promise to keep our humble achievements in check.
And you Xers are just as bad. You are resentful of us Gen Ys for doing what you never could do, or would do, and that is: stand up to the cultural bullying of the baby boomers. In fact, I reckon you Xers are nothing but mini-me baby boomers. I mean, can anyone tell the difference between Xers and boomers in the workplace apart from a full head of hair and the absence of a paunch?
Bernard. Bernard. Wake up. You're dreaming. You were rambling on about boomers and Xers.
That was no dream. That was a nightmare. I thought I had passed over to the dark side. I thought I was a Gen Y. It was horrible. I think I said awful things about the boomers and the Xers. None of it is true of course. It was my unconscious state. The boomers are faultless. Repeat after me, the boomers are faultless.
Bernard Salt is a KPMG partner
Bernard Salt, Demographer | September 06, 2007
I HAVE had it up to here with you whinging, carping baby boomers. And you Xers aren't much better either. I've been silent on what's wrong with you old-fart generations for far too long. Someone should have told you where you're wrong a long time ago.
All we Generation Ys ever hear from baby-boomer management is how difficult it is for them to manage us. Apparently we're too fickle, too flighty, too feckless to really understand what life's all about. We don't understand the pain the boomers have been through, and that makes them strong and us weak.
Well, let's test the veracity of the boomer view and examine the oh-so-pained life of their generation. I'll deal with you Xers in a manner befitting your generation after I deliver it to the boomers right between the eyes.
Let's start with the 60s. Apart from a credit squeeze in the decade, this was pretty much full-on full employment delivering good economic times. No pain there unless, of course, you boomers are counting the stress you went through "because your parents didn't understand you".
Then came the 70s. Bit of an oil crisis caused petrol prices to rise. Hmmm. We're not exactly dealing with the four horsemen of the Apocalypse here, are we?
Although, there was a period of high inflation during the Whitlam years. Now, tell me again, boomers, how these events tragically affected your 20-something lifestyle - other than to impose a really bad karma over the whole era. And which you courageously and stoically survived.
Then on into the late 70s and early 80s, with nothing too negative impacting on those delicate young boomer lives. Although, to be fair, there was a quite nasty drought in 1982 which resulted in, you know, really oppressive water restrictions. Oh, the pain.
Then we come to the late 1980s and the action and life-shaping experiences of the boomers starts to hot up. The stock market crash of October 1987 resulted in exactly what sort of impact on you, boomers? I mean, at this stage in life boomers are aged in their late 20s and 30s. It's not as if this lot had their life savings wiped out by a single day's trading.
And in either case, the Australian economy immediately kicked on strongly into property. That's right. Property. Here's where those terribly "put upon" baby boomers had to endure a year or so of high interest rates on houses bought earlier in the decade for less than $50,000. If these interest rates were so devastating, how is it that you boomers managed to hang on to your houses?
Oh, I get it, the boomers found it very stressful at the time to deal with high interest rates and it is this experience that gives them the right to lord it over every succeeding generation about how you have been to hell and back.
Oh, and then there were those dreadful downsizings that baby boomers survived in the early 1990s. But if those downsizings were truly so dreadful, then why is it that boomers are now at the top of the heap in the business world? Whereas preceding generations just took things in their stride, the boomers live it, magnify it, and hold it out as some great and meaningfully life-shaping event.
They are so self-obsessed that they seize upon every event, every trend, every "cause" and treat it as if mankind has never broached these matters previously.
The boomers invented pre-marital sex. The boomers were the first to come up with the notion of teenage rebellion. The boomers invented new out-there forms of fashion such as, well, denim. However, they did grow their hair long and should be given full credit for this contribution to human achievement.
And so we come to the boomers at 50-something in the workplace. What do you suppose is the great business issue of our time? That's right. The pain the boomers must endure in managing Gen Y.
Where does the boomer's self-obsession end? And, really, what life experience have they endured that gives them the right to lord it over every one else?
As far as I can see, they've had 30 years of adulthood with one major recession followed by a downsizing. And none of which was really sufficient to knock them off their trajectory to property wealth and business success.
We Ys should be so lucky as to have three decades in front of us in such a benign economic environment. And at the end of our careers we promise to keep our humble achievements in check.
And you Xers are just as bad. You are resentful of us Gen Ys for doing what you never could do, or would do, and that is: stand up to the cultural bullying of the baby boomers. In fact, I reckon you Xers are nothing but mini-me baby boomers. I mean, can anyone tell the difference between Xers and boomers in the workplace apart from a full head of hair and the absence of a paunch?
Bernard. Bernard. Wake up. You're dreaming. You were rambling on about boomers and Xers.
That was no dream. That was a nightmare. I thought I had passed over to the dark side. I thought I was a Gen Y. It was horrible. I think I said awful things about the boomers and the Xers. None of it is true of course. It was my unconscious state. The boomers are faultless. Repeat after me, the boomers are faultless.
Bernard Salt is a KPMG partner